spirits," said our guest gently.
"Who are you?" asked the doctor again.
"I am a 'coldun,' a shaman!" was the indifferent reply. "I brought this science from the Tundra of Malaya Zyemla, where the nomading tribes possess the secret of intercourse with the dead and the spirits."
"How very interesting!" interjected the doctor. "But you cannot invoke the souls of the dead or the spirits here."
"Yes, I can. I can do it here right away," smiled the shaman. "It will cost you three roubles, gentlemen!"
His voice was imploring and betrayed the fear that we might refuse his offer.
"I shall pay three roubles," agreed the doctor. "Please begin at once!"
"Immediately!" said the shaman with joy, while greedily pocketing the money. "Please sit down at the other end of the room and put the light out."
I had time enough to notice that he took from his pocket a tiny, flat piece of wood which he put to his lips.
We were sitting in darkness and silence. From the neighboring cottage entered through the window the scanty light of a petrol lamp. Still we were able to see the shaman's black figure standing immovably near the door. All of a sudden a faint, scarcely audible sound was heard like the buzzing of a fly entangled in a spider's net.
The sound became gradually louder till it seemed to fill the whole space of the room. It split into tens, hundreds of tunes, which reverberated against the panes of the window, the papered ceiling, the walls; the sounds, trembling, squeaking, roaring, raced in a mad whirl through the whole room, approached my very ears and vanished again in the distance, far away until they seemed almost smothered. I was seized with a strange restlessness; incomprehensible, morbid forebodings began to torment my soul.
The black figure of the shaman, hardly visible in the gloom, reeled, slowly at first, methodically, then with quicker passion, till his movements changed imperceptibly into swift jumps, twists, leaps. Standing on one leg, he started to turn round with ever increasing speed, till after a few minutes he fell to the ground exhausted and breathless, shouting with piercing accents: "They have come! … They have come! …"
Immense multitudes of echoing sounds seemed to chase each other through the dark room, changing into a whirlwind, storm, and chaos, which one could feel with almost a physical pain. Blasts of wind waves rushed through the room. It made my flesh creep to see it lifting the papers lying upon the table. I do not know how long it all lasted. I only know that my hands became icy cold and that my brow was covered with sweat. My eyes seemed to become extraordinarily sharp. I could see quite clearly the prostrate figure of the shaman. I could distinguish his pale, almost shining face and his wide-opened, glowing eyes. He had the same little piece of wood in his hand and with his lips called forth the various sounds.
Suddenly, in the darkness, at many spots, for the twinkling of an eye, there blazed out greenish, phosphoric flames. Then again they came and vanished. The sounds abruptly died away. A sudden blast made tongues of flame flicker up near the ceiling, and then all was dark and silent as if a heavy black curtain was drawn. The shaman remained lifeless and did not answer the doctor's repeated questions if he might light the lamp.
He did so at last and approached the prostrate figure. The shaman was lying with closed eyes and compressed lips, a thin streak of blood issuing from his nostrils and deep furrows round his mouth.
We lifted him up and put him on a chair. He opened his eyes heavily and whispered: "Brandy!"
The doctor poured out a cup from his hunters' flagon. The shaman gulped it down, his teeth chattering upon the glass, stretched his limbs, and rose from the chair.
"It didn't come off to-day. … They came, but kept at a distance … and refused to approach."
After a while he left.
My friend the doctor patted my shoulder and said:
"It is better to shoot wild ducks and grouse than to invoke spirits. Set your mind at rest, my boy! This is no wizardry. Monotonous sounds and movements are all excellent devices of hypnotism. But we must hurry up with the cartridges. Open the bag with hailshot No. 3."
This was my first encounter with a shaman-koldun.
The second took place years afterwards on the shores of the Pacific.
It was at the outset of my scientific career, when I was studying the origin of the coal deposits of the Far East The scene was on the River Tudagou in the Ussuri country.
We pitched our tents in an oak and hazel forest, and in the innocence of our hearts we were making preparations for a prolonged stay, when unexpectedly arrived two mounted Orochons.[1] They announced that we could not remain where we were as it was an Orochon cemetery. When they saw my amazement, the natives led me to a small glade and pointed to the tree-tops. I noticed longish, black objects hanging down from the highest branches.
These were the bodies of the dead. The Orochons wrap them round with buck-skins, which are covered oak-tree bark, tied up strongly with leather straps and hanged up on the branches high above the earth.
Seeing me unwilling to leave my camp, the Orochons claimed a gift of brandy, in return for which they offered to bring a shaman, whose invocation would procure for us from the souls of the dead the permission to remain within the border of their realm.
The necromancer came towards evening. He was a young peasant, his face blackened and disfigured by smallpox. His coat was made of multi-coloured rags with straps of red and yellow painted leather hanging down to the ground. He carried a gigantic drum and a long pole with little bells, from which a fife made of buckhom was suspended.
He set to his task at once. First he began to beat the drum for all he was worth, then he blew the fife and made the little bells peal. Soon nothing was heard but the fife as he jumped and turned kicking his heels. The thin tunes of the fife were ever broken with the shrill yells and groans of the shaman. He whirled round madly, his face was swollen, his lips wide open, his eyes flushed with blood, and foam appeared on his lips.
He fell to the ground at last and quivered long as if in agony. Although he uttered no more sounds, the drum still roared in the air, the little bells still pealed, the fife shrieked and piercing groans were heard, repeated by the echo of the forest in the deep silence of the warm, dreamy and overwhelming July night.
When the shaman rose from the ground, we asked him if we might remain. He said yes, and taking a little salt and meat cast it to the four quarters of the world, offering sacrifice to the souls hospitable to us of the deceased Orochons.
The art of fortune-telling plays an important part in the life of Russian peasants. I can truly say that I have not in the home of divination, Thibet and Mongolia, met such a widespread and general practice. In Russia fortune-telling Is a "black" science, supposed to be the work of the evil spirits, while in Mongolia it has the character of a religious cult. Amongst the former it hides in solitary cottages, coming forth only in dark and stormy nights when all kinds of "evil forces" haunt the earth, and peep into the hovels of inhabitants whose souls are wrapped in even deeper gloom.
No other people attach so much importance to sorcery as the Russians, It is not only the uncouth, illiterate villager, but also the working classes, whom their leaders have taught false culture; the bourgeoisie and even the upper classes of Russian society have
